Democratic Erosion University Course Student Blog

Students enrolled in our course are encouraged to write for the course blog, and to read and comment on posts from students at other participating universities. The blog offers students the opportunity to analyze current events through the lens of the theory and case studies they engage with through the course.

These are student blog posts written by student participants in the Democratic Erosion Course. These posts were not written by nor represent the views of the Democratic Erosion Consortium.

At What Point Does Protecting Democracy Become Undemocratic?

The classical understanding of democracy rests on the abstract concept of the “common good” and the idea that people elect representatives to carry out their collective will, a conception Schumpeter famously critiqued. While scholars tend to differ in the principles...

Social Media is Bad for American Democracy

Social media hurts American Democracy. As Waldner and Lust describe, democracy relies on two forms of accountability to function. One is vertical accountability, meaning that citizens can hold officials accountable through elections, which pressures representatives to...

States of Exception: The Successful Rejection of Executive Overreach in Chile

After storming to the presidency in the 2025 presidential elections,[1] Chilean President José Antonio Kast has wasted no time attempting to enact his campaign agenda. In August, the President presented the Chilean Congress with a reform to address organized crime and...

Caution: Trump! The “Break Biden’s and Harris’s Regime” Plan is REAL!

Sep 13, 2024 | Ohio State University

Project 2025? If you think there is nothing more anti-democratic than Project 2025, YOU ARE WRONG! If Trump wins the 2024 election and, therefore, enacts his plan...

Words of Warning: How Trump’s Rhetoric Reveals Potential Authoritarianism

Sep 13, 2024 | Ohio State University

For years now, former President Donald Trump has been enamored with claims of fraud in the 2020 election and unruly insulting his opponents. The 2024 election season has...

Election Commission Chaos: Are Hard-to-Access Public Meetings a Sign of Democratic Erosion? by Allison Todd

Mar 31, 2019 | University of Memphis

When I was a child, I would ever-so-often hear my mother ask my grandmother what had happened in the most recent election commission meeting; my grandmother, active in the local political sphere as...

Assessing Public Opinion by Rajdeep Singh

Mar 31, 2019 | Rollins College

When looking at daily news, a few topics have been constantly appearing in the last two years. The most frequent of them all: the Brexit Referendum and its fallout in the British parliament. It...

The Divide Between Right-Wing Populists and the Left-Wing Elite by Jacob Buckelew

Mar 31, 2019 | Rollins College

It is the great paradox within the party of the welfare state that economic populism results in a greater level of elitism in Washington. As David Brooks suggests, centralization-as opposed to...

Rhetoric and Reactionism in the Brexit Debacle – by Matt Willis @ Rollins College

Mar 31, 2019 | Rollins College

In his article, Max Fisher of the New York Times describes an intriguing conundrum in the democratic process, and two parallel cases that expose it. At the forefront is a recall election in the town...

Perils of the Green New Deal

Mar 31, 2019 | Rollins College

The Green New Deal, proposed earlier this year, is a non-binding resolution that primarily plans to battle the detrimental effects of climate change, but also advocates for methods to lower economic...

Green Old Deal

Mar 31, 2019 | Rollins College

A country where there is no pollution, and everyone has a job sounds like a perfect place to live. This utopian vision of a state is the end game for the Green New Deal that is presented by the...

Ignoring Constitutional Obligations by Sydney Willis

Mar 31, 2019 | Rollins College

How hyper polarization has led to politicians in the United States ignoring their constitutional obligations Ever since...

Donald Trump vs The Media: A Threat to Our American Democracy? By Samuel Reeder

Mar 31, 2019 | American University

President Donald Trump has been consistently undermining and discrediting the news media in the United States since the start of his campaign back in 2016. The president, who has famously...

What Impeachment Means by Evangelina Wong

Mar 31, 2019 | Rollins College

The presidential election of 2016 was one that stirred the nation. The way that a businessman and television personality, Donald Trump, took over the Republican party and later the presidential...